Is your kid really sick or not?
Today was one of those days where I was really happy that I don’t have a corporate job. Today reminded me of why I enjoy working for myself so much. My son decided when he woke up this morning that he just didn’t want to do the Kindergarten thing today. “I don’t feel good. My leg hurts. I’m tired.” yadda, yadda, yadda. And so it went until the crying started just as he was about to walk out the door and get in the car.
We sat at the bottom of our steps and discussed what was wrong with him at the moment. “My leg hurts.” “Did you bump it or hit it on something yesterday at school?”, I replied. “I don’t know”, he said. “Well maybe you’re just growing. You know sometimes when you are growing so big and so fast, your body can hurt or ache a little. Maybe you can try to walk it off and see if that will make it feel better.” So he got up, walked out the front door, and I thought that was the end of it.
Oh no, of course not. It could never be that easy. He walked up and down our sidewalk a few times before returning to our front door, tears streaming down his face. “Can’t I just stay home today?” he said. “Now baby, you know that I can’t let you stay home if you aren’t really sick. You need to go on to school today and at least try.” So he turned around, went out the door (still crying), walked down the sidewalk, and turned back to look at me as if to say “you know, you could save me if you really wanted to. All you have to do is say that I can stay home.” Ugh! The guilt! The horror! Why do they do that!!!??? ::sigh:: This part of being a mom sucks.
At about 11:30am the school called. My little fella had come back from art class and was crying. The teacher didn’t know why really, she just knew that it wasn’t like my son to be emotional so she thought she’d call and find out what I wanted to do. “Do you think he’s sick?, I quickly asked her. “Well, I don’t know”, she said. “Maybe he is a little hot.”
Thank God. An excuse. Something, anything, that would give me permission to get what he wanted – the rest of the day off. Sometimes we all just make up our minds that we just can’t do it today (whatever it entails in our lives). And you know what? That’s ok. Except as a working mom you are limited in how lenient you can be with that policy. There are only so many days that you can take off from work, you know? I was really glad today that I decided a long time ago to rid myself of that stress causing issue by working for myself.
“Ok, we’ll be there in a few minutes to pick him up.” So I packed up my 2 year old and off to the school we went. While I was in the office, he came to the door to meet me. “You must have seen me coming, hmm?” “Yep.” he said. “Well, let’s take you home, get you some lunch, and you can lay down and take a nap. You’ll need the rest if you’re sick.” A few head pattings and soft back strokes later and we were off.
We weren’t even out of the parking lot yet when he announced that he wasn’t really sick. “I think I’m just growing.” he said. Yes son, you certainly are.
